


What A Piece of Work Is Stan

by lemonfizzies



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Angst, Brotherly Angst, Bullying, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Miscommunication, Spoilers - A Tale of Two Stans, but only in like...the VERY LAST line, for reals man im...ahhh...., splitting up, still good 2 tag tho i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2017-10-02
Packaged: 2019-01-08 01:50:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12244773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemonfizzies/pseuds/lemonfizzies
Summary: It should have been easy: Give a class presentation without drawing the attention of the school bully. And yet...





	What A Piece of Work Is Stan

Stanford stared himself down in the mirror, a wide-eyed, hesitant but determined boy with fogging lenses and damp hair.  
No.  
Stanford, a wide-eyed and determined boy.  
No, better still: Stanford Pines, a determined young man.  
Determined. Determined.  
He took a deep breath through the nose and exhaled sharply through his mouth, squaring his shoulders and puffing out his chest the way he'd always seen Stanley do before a fight.  
"You got this, man!" He stated aggressively, wincing when his voice echoed in the bathroom. The reflection in the mirror shrank with him, both glancing nervously at the door. Through it, they could hear the familiar creaking of the floorboards as Stanley shuffled around outside. Late riser, as per usual, he was either too asleep to hear or too groggy to care.  
Stanford returned his attention to the mirror, trapping himself in a steady gaze. Another deep breath, another tense, brief moment of squaring off against himself. Then, a spontaneous grin. He flung the door open and raced out, bumping smack into Stanley as he was wandering in.  
"I've totally got this!" He crowed, clapping Stanley on the shoulder as he passed and beaming all the while.  
Stanley hesitated in the doorway, confused. The sudden, intense blur of motion proving too much for him to process half-awake, he stared blankly after Stanford. How could anyone be that excited about anything this early?  
Bleary-eyed, he stumbled on in, not bothering to shut the door behind him.  
_________________

"You've got this, man!" Stanley flashes Ford a thumbs-up from his desk. Stanford grins, clutching his note cards to his chest with both hands, as he makes his way to the front of the class. This project, his spectacular 8th Grade science presentation, would blow everyone away, win him the admiration of his peers (and maybe the heart of a girl or two), and set him in stone as a master poster board decorator. It had been in the works for three months, the midterm biology -- ahem, science exam. He was ready. He was prepared. Heart pounding, lenses fogging, a nervous tug of the collar and he was there, at the front, all eyes on him. He cleared his throat, took a passing glance over the faces of the assembled students, and began.  
"So, three finches and a tortoise walk into a bar --"  
He is beaming, hardly glancing at the cards, abandoned on the metal shelf of the chalkboard, a flurry of excitement and rapid-fire information interspersed with terrible puns and one-liners. Courtesy of Stanley Pines, no doubt, seeing as he is busting a gut in the front row. The rest of the class is nowhere near as invested, but they laugh politely when he laughs and nobody's even thought to mention Ford's hands or glasses or nasal voice. The poster board is a pop-out, multi-layer, glitter-glued monster of a thing, all vibrant and neon, with graphs and diagrams in equally entertaining fonts and formats. Stanford is at home, here, at the board, he is pulsing, no, surging with enthusiasm, rendering the class spellbound. He continues for a full 3 minutes over schedule, the instructor himself so engrossed that he does not think to call time. When Stanford finishes, looking expectantly out to gauge the reaction, he is surprised to find not a single person laughs, points, yells, or even whispers to their neighbor.  
"Um yeah, that's. That's my project on the Galapagos Islands and their importance to the development of evolutionary theory." He finishes, a bit of the glamourie already beginning to flake away. He hesitated and then takes a step back. Forward an inch then back again, caught between the knowledge that he should continue to at least appear confident, and the need to anchor himself to the chalkboard rim.  
"Any questions?"  
There is a long pause. Not a tense pause but a pregnant one, drawn out and unexpected. Fifteen hands go up.  
Ford is admittedly shocked. They have questions. They never have questions. Not even that, there's the all to present fact that he hasn't rehearsed this part to deal with. There's no real way to prepare for questions aside from knowing your material, of course, and he knows his material well enough but can he repeat it all with the rapidly growing quake in his legs and arms?  
"Wow, guess I'm pretty popular today, huh." He laughs softly, breathily, almost to himself. The front row catches a muttering breeze, seeing his mouth move but unable to decipher the words spilling out.  
He scans the hands, the faces, unsure of who to pick. The longer he takes, the more his glasses actually begin to mist over, heat radiating from a face now turned red furnace. He can't do this, he couldn't possibly. He pointed, jerking the arm out stiff and sudden, just as surprised as anyone must've been. He pointed at random without checking and heard, as if from leagues and miles away, the same voice that often sent him into panic after school, behind the equipment shed. The same voice that shouted from across the playground, names he'd never heard, names that would send Stanley charging after the source, with Ford unable to hold him back. Crampelter. He feels the quaking sensation spread, worsen.  
"So you're from the islands, right?" the boy pipes up, and Ford swallows the growing lump in his throat. An innocent, obvious question. He has to keep his cool.  
"No, I'm --"  
"You've got to be, though." He cuts him off, sharp and accusatory, and something about the tone of it tripping alarm bells in Ford's mind. He removes his glasses to find that his hands are shaking, and he is now faced with the arduous task of wiping the lenses clear without dropping them.  
"I'm not quite, uh, sure what you --"  
"You're a freak."  
Ford freezes, arm half-raised, the earpiece just brushing his temple. It takes a moment to process what was just said aloud, and yet another to formulate a response that wouldn't invite worse. It hangs in the air, that moment, settling into Stanley most of all, already twisted around in his chair to glare at Crampelter, near the back.  
"I'll pummel ya." he growls, definitely to himself but too loud for those seated nearby to ignore.  
Ford is still recovering, to say the least. He is surprised and not at all surprised at the same time. He thinks to himself, he thinks, 'Don't take it,' but the phrasing of the insult is too vague, seemingly disconnected from the islands question, and Ford, in a twisted way, needs to know. To understand the mockery being made of himself, yes, he is dancing to their tune, swallowing the bait, hook, line, sinker, and pole altogether, but he cannot let the equation go unbalanced.  
Yet, even as his mouth splits open, even as he leans forward, giving only the slightest indication of a response, Crampelter's already speaking, Ford's stunned silence all the permission they'd ever need.  
"The finches and the lizards, they're all freaks. Like you. So you've gotta be from the islands, Freakazoid, that's where you all come fro --"  
"That's enough." The teacher finally steps in, sharp, not so much to rescue Stanford as to stop Stanley, who has risen from his chair with murder in his eyes.  
Ford has returned his glasses fully to his face by now and draws a shaky breath, steadying himself on the metal chalkboard rim with both hands. He glances up at the ceiling. Beyond the ceiling.  
"You may take your seat, now, Stanford." The teacher prompts.  
Ford doesn't move, so Stanley doesn't move, half turning to the board with eyes narrowed. Ford's never done that before, never not obeyed a direct command, and he's still looking up. Stanley watches, searches, afraid of what he might find.  
"Stanford." The teacher warns, not with a gentle tone but an exasperated and tired one. Stanley turns all the way so that he and Ford facing each other across miles of desk. He cannot go up. There are rules, there are blood oaths, there are promises. He cannot go, not here and now, so it's all he can do but silently plead with him, staring intently.  
_Come back_ , he thinks out, blindly, _Ford, get back here or you're gonna be toast._  
Wherever Ford is, he cannot hear. He grips the metal rim with a purpose that turns all twelve knuckles white. Head tilted toward the sky but his eyes much farther, too far, each glazed with a quivering liquid dome.  
_I will not cry_ , he says, on and on in his head. _Don't cry, don't blink, don't breathe or you're dead_.  
And the teacher is suddenly there, above him. Their face, so full of rapt appreciation a lifetime ago, is twisted in a frown.  
_Come back. Don't cry. Sit down._  
"...just begging to be sent to the principal's office!" The instructor is shouting, grabbing Ford by the collar and yanking him away from the board. Ford loses his grip on the metal rim, his delicate balancing act unceremoniously shattered, and lets out a yelp. Stanley jerks violently into motion.  
"Let him go, you - !!"  
All pulsing red instincts, Stanley trips over himself and feels his front teeth puncture the skin of his lower lip. Ford is pushed aside, forgotten in the spectacle of Stanley bringing a nearby desk - and Alicia, the student inside it - crashing down to meet him. The mess of limbs and metal legs, the desktop, the teacher trying to pry them all apart, and Ford is lost. He stands alone, abandoned in the pandemonium he has created. There is a deep, burning hole in both his stomach and throat. His skull is pressurized, pushing water from his eyes and mucous out his nose. He cannot stop shaking, and finds that, strangely, he can no longer hear a sound.  
By the time Stanley is extracted from Alicia and the desks reset, Ford is long gone.  
It doesn't matter. The bell scatters the class anyways.  
Stanley halts halfway to the door, unsure of whether or not he should take Stanford's poster board with him. The teacher shoots a pointed glare. He bolts down the hall empty-handed.  
_________________  
Stanley sprinted the length of the building, the yard, the basketball courts. He even checked behind the equipment shed AND the bathrooms at each end of the school.  
Stanley was not apt to waste his whole lunch looking for Stanford. He was hungry, he was winded, and - most importantly - he was fed up. It was obvious by now that Ford didn't want to be found. Not just today but for the past year, Stanley's brother kept finding weirder and weirder places to hide. Half the time, when Stanley finally tracked him down, Ford would stare at him with what he could only describe as disappointment. There was something else, too, something ugly. Something he couldn't pin. He was tempted to stop going after Ford at all, but... there was the second look. The look at the end, after they'd sat together in silence for the rest of lunch. Ford would always lean on him, eyes shining, with a ghost of a smile.  
"Thanks, Stanley." He'd say, quiet and slow, "You're my favorite twin."  
"I better be, ya nut." He'd reply with a smirk, poking Ford's forehead and Ford would really smile. Softly, to himself, but he'd smile. That smile meant that everything was okay.  
Stanley finally gave up after the third lap around the courtyard. Lunch had only fifteen minutes left and all that running about really did a number on him. He grabbed his sandwich from his locker, slamming it shut with an unnecessary amount of force.  
_Stupid Ford and your stupid hiding places._  
He stalked down the hallway, blindly headed in no particular direction, the sandwich inhaled with furious purpose.  
The more he thought about it, he wasn't mad at Ford. Not really. Who could blame him? He was mad that it always ended with Ford in the same spot. That's what it was. His brother was stuck, Stanley couldn't pull him out, and it was infuriating.  
__________________  
A sudden bang startled Ford, and he nearly dropped his steel wool sample. He rushed to the door of the lab, curious despite dreading the possibility that he might be blamed for any damages. That was the second disturbance in the space of a minute. One is excusable, but two? Something was happening outside. He cracked the door so that he could see down the hall and slam it shut if need be, if it really was Crampelter finding him once again. There were times (times he never told Stanley about for fear his bully would be a face on the evening news) when his brother had not found him first. Times when Ford's arms, legs, shoulderblades, and anywhere else except his face or neck had turned purple, blue, and yellow. Times he wore a sweatshirt and fleece pants to bed in the dead of summer _._  
 _"You're weird." Stanley had said, punching him lightly in the arm. Ford bit back a yelp._  
 _"It's an experiment, Stanley" Ford forced it, forced a smile that split his face and fractured something deep inside, "I'm doin' an experiment."_  
 _"Yeah, well, when you're a big famous nerd you better tell them I helped you out. Better not leave me behind." Stanley's face was hidden in a comic, but he sounded....playful? Not quite...but enough that Ford didn't pry_.  
He was there, now, Stanford could see through the small gap in the doorway, a locker dented under the force of Stanley's right hook.  
Stanley himself looked......awful. Seething. His eyes shimmering with malice and something wet, teeth gritted and knuckles already spit, bleeding, Stan reared back to swing again.  
"Hey, hey, stop!" Ford scrambled out from the safety of the lab, Stanley turned, and Ford was staring at the ceiling.  
"Stanford??!!!? I thought you --" but Stanley didn't get to explain who he thought Ford had been. He was yanked back rather unceremoniously by a boy much taller, much bolder, and slammed into the row of metal lockers with a shout.  
Ford felt warm, thick blood pouring out his nose from where Stan had socked him a good one. He couldn't see straight, heard his brother swear profusely but faintly, muffled. The force of the blow had knocked his glasses off but he recognized the kid assaulting Stan all the same.  
Crampelter.  
Ford scrambled up, back, every synapse firing in double time. Stan thrashed about violently in Crampelter's grip but the boy had him pinned by the arm.  
"Where ya headed, Freakazoid?"  
The taunt flung in jest still burned, shame welling up in Stanford's eyes as he ran away, leaving Stanley to fend for himself.  
______________________________  
By the time Ford had found an adult, a yard supervisor, it was too late. Stanley was alone, lip split, nursing a black eye and what would later be discovered to be a sprained wrist. He wouldn't look at Stanford and Stanford wouldn't look at him.  
Later that night, in the living room, Filbrick Pines sat with a terrifyingly calm facade. He merely nodded as Ford recounted how Stanley stepped in to stop the same kid (as usual) from doing more damage. He begged his father to talk to the principal, to their teacher, to anyone who might be able to step in. At this rate, Stanley would be out of teeth by the end of next semester and Crampelter still hadn't been reprimanded once in five years of torment.  
Mr. Pines sat silent, blank-faced, sunglasses obscuring any trace of emotion as they always would and always had. He spoke only one sentence, cold and even in a way that shook Ford to his core.  
"You boys need to fight your own battles."  
Within a week, the twins found themselves enrolled in a weekend boxing class. Stanley excelled. Stanford scraped by.  
It was never spoken of again, the day Ford escaped and Stan was left with the short and long of it all, but they were never again quite as close. It was clear in the hesitations, the silences, the off-beat replies and strained, courteous smiles  
Stan started wearing sweatshirts to bed. Around the house. Every day, all day, he never took them off. Ford was too afraid to ask why.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short little idea i had on when/why exactly Ford n Stan started drifting apart ✌✨


End file.
